For anyone who’s ever wondered what it looks like in the area around the Pine Creek Tungsten Mine outside of Bishop, here’s a great photo essay on it. Dave McCoy, (yes that Dave McCoy) recently took a tour of the area with the current owner. He then published a three part series on his photo blog about the trip. The post contain some great photos of an area that most people will never see. I highly recommended checking it out.

• A Wild Adventure at Pine Creek / Part 1
  
• More From the Pine Creek Mine
• The Final Images from Pine Creek

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My newest black and white image is of the Slim Princess steam engine at Laws Railroad Museum just north of Bishop CA. Back in the 1880′s the Slim Princess use to chug along it’s narrow gauge rails on it’s run from Mound House NV to Keeler CA, (Originally the Carson and Colorado Railroad was meant to stretch all the way to the Colorado River, it never made it.) The Slim Princess ran this route until 1960 when the railroad ceased operation. She can now be seen at Laws, standing as a tribute to the past and looking like she could make the run for another 100 years.

For those of you who live in the Eastern Sierra, or those who may be in the Bishop area on June 2nd, the National Weather Service from Las Vegas will be holding a 2 hour storm spotter training class in Bishop on Wednesday,  June 2nd. The class will be held at the Bishop Tribal Elders Center at 350 N. Barlow Ln and runs from 4-6pm.

Here is the brochure for the class: http://bloggingbishop.com/sites/default/files/flyerstormspotter.pdf

When I first saw this I let out a laugh, but then when I thought about it, I realized it makes good sense. Bishop and the Eastern Sierra sit in no mans land when it comes to doppler radar, so it’s hard for the forecasters in Vegas to know what’s going on there. To have trained spotters reporting from the Eastern Sierra will let the NWS know what’s going on weather wise and help them in issuing watches and warnings.

The Eastern Sierra gets some pretty intense thunderstorms in the summer. I’ve seen more hail there than I’ve seen here in Wisconsin. I’ve also seen some intense, damaging winds from summer thunderstorms. This class is a great chance for ES residents to learn and understand more about the local weather. I’d go if I was there, that’s for sure.

Here’s the first image from my new toy.

Lone Pine Peak at Sunrise, Eastern Sierra Nevada, CA

What is my new toy? It’s a new scanner. To be precise it’s an Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner that not only scans prints, but also negatives and slides. I’ve been playing with it all morning and it’s awesome. As you can see from the image above, a slide from Feb. of 2000, the scanner does an amazing job with slides.

That’s one of the main reasons I got this scanner. I want to get my best slides onto the computer and backed up for safety. It also let’s me share many of my earliest images with you guys. Some of these you’ve seen, but most you haven’t.

I’m looking forward to sharing these images with everyone. Some of my best stuff is on slides and has never been shown to the world. Keep your eyes out for them.